Pet owners have a variety of commercially available pet treats to choose from, including rawhide, jerky treats, and biscuits. Two types of treats are animal or meat product derivatives, and starch based products that include meat palatability enhancers. Both treat types have a meat based flavor to which cats and dogs are attracted. Generally, meat or poultry broth concentrate or powder, such as liver digest, function as a palatability enhancer in starch based pet treats. Thus, there are meat and meat flavored treats available which are desired by consumers.
Starch based pet treats, however, suffer from a number of drawbacks including being brittle or hard. The starch treats also have a tendency to become hard after the treat has been removed from its packaging. Harder pet treats are difficult for pets to chew and may not be desirable to pets having sensitive teeth or gums. For this reason alternatives to hard starch based treats are desired such as soft moist pet treats.
Animal derivative products are usually by-products including ears, snouts, hooves, and other animal parts. By-products have a couple of problems; first bacteria, mold, and yeast will grow on these products, if the moisture content is higher than 14%. If the moisture content is less than 14% it is likely that the treats are hard and in some cases brittle. As stated, many consumers prefer a soft and “moist” treat. Most of the by-products are cooked in an oven-like process and dried to a moisture content of less than 15%, whereby most of the free water has been removed. This moisture content is critical to make the product shelf stable. The resultant low moisture content yields a hard treat, such as a cooked and dried pig ear. Currently, available animal pet treats made with bones, rawhide, cow tails, pig ears and cow snouts, are generally very hard and not very easy for a pet to chew. Generally, younger pets with undeveloped teeth or older pets having fewer teeth also have a hard time with these types of treats. Thus, animal by-products suffer from either too much moisture or being hard and sometimes brittle.
There are options for making soft animal by-product treats, that have a sufficiently low bacteria count. Unfortunately, many of these products have deficiencies. For example, one pet treat currently available mixes turkey meat with turkey liver, followed by an anti-oxidant. The mixture is emulsified and mixed with other additives and extruded to form a sausage like product. Such an extrusion process is capital intensive, as it includes mills, mixers, an extruder, and a drier.
Another animal pet treat currently available is a soft rawhide product that is made by soaking animal rawhide in a humectant and at least one antimicrobial agent. Although this process produces a moist pet treat that is palatable to a pet, it also includes an antimicrobial agent, such as hydrogen peroxide. The use of antimicrobial agents, such as hydrogen peroxide, can adversely affect a pet by causing organ and tissue damage. Thus, a moist pet treat with a low microbial count is desired without the addition of an antimicrobial agent.
As described above, there are various problems with currently available soft animal treats. The pet treats that are soft, generally have a high moisture content. This moisture content may lead to bacterial growth that if consumed by a pet, may make the pet sick. The pet treats that include an antimicrobial agent to prevent such bacterial growth may also be detrimental to the pet, as consumption of the antimicrobial agent may also make the pet sick. There is, therefore, still a need for a pet treat that is soft, moist, and does not promote bacterial growth while also not including antimicrobial agents.